SALAMMBO

CHAPTER I

THE FEAST

It was at Megara, a suburb of Carthage, in the gardens of Hamilcar. The
soldiers whom he had commanded in Sicily were having a great feast to celebrate
the anniversary of the battle of Eryx, and as the master was away, and they were
numerous, they ate and drank with perfect freedom.

The captains, who wore bronze cothurni, had placed themselves in the central
path, beneath a gold-fringed purple awning, which reached from the wall of the
stables to the first terrace of the palace; the common soldiers were scattered
beneath the trees, where numerous flat-roofed buildings might be seen,
wine-presses, cellars, storehouses, bakeries, and arsenals, with a court for
elephants, dens for wild beasts, and a prison for slaves.

Fig-trees surrounded the kitchens; a wood of sycamores stretched away to meet
masses of verdure, where the pomegranate shone amid the white tufts of the
cotton-plant; vines, grape-laden, grew up into the branches of the pines; a
field of roses bloomed beneath the plane-trees; here and there lilies rocked
upon the turf; the paths were strewn with black sand mingled with powdered
coral, and in the centre the avenue of cypress formed, as it were, a double
colonnade of green obelisks from one extremity to the other.

Far in the background stood the palace, built of yellow mottled Numidian
marble, broad courses supporting its four terraced stories. With its large,
straight, ebony staircase, bearing the prow of a vanquished galley at the
corners of every step, its red doors quartered with black crosses, its brass
gratings protecting it from scorpions below, and its trellises of gilded rods
closing the apertures above, it seemed to the soldiers in its haughty opulence
as solemn and impenetrable as the face of Hamilcar.

The Council had appointed his house for the holding of this feast; the
convalescents lying in the temple of Eschmoun had set out at daybreak and
dragged themselves thither on their crutches. Every minute others were arriving.
They poured in ceaselessly by every path like torrents rushing into a lake;
through the trees the slaves of the kitchens might be seen running scared and
half-naked; the gazelles fled bleating on the lawns; the sun was setting, and
the perfume of citron trees rendered the exhalation from the perspiring crowd
heavier still.

Men of all nations were there, Ligurians, Lusitanians, Balearians, Negroes,
and fugitives from Rome. Beside the heavy Dorian dialect were audible the
resonant Celtic syllables rattling like chariots of war, while Ionian
terminations conflicted with consonants of the desert as harsh as the jackal's
cry. The Greek might be recognised by his slender figure, the Egyptian by his
elevated shoulders, the Cantabrian by his broad calves. There were Carians
proudly nodding their helmet plumes, Cappadocian archers displaying large
flowers painted on their bodies with the juice of herbs, and a few Lydians in
women's robes, dining in slippers and earrings. Others were ostentatiously
daubed with vermilion, and resembled coral statues.

They stretched themselves on the cushions, they ate squatting round large
trays, or lying face downwards they drew out the pieces of meat and sated
themselves, leaning on their elbows in the peaceful posture of lions tearing
their prey. The last comers stood leaning against the trees watching the low
tables half hidden beneath the scarlet coverings, and awaiting their turn.

Hamilcar's kitchens being insufficient, the Council had sent them slaves,
ware, and beds, and in the middle of the garden, as on a battle-field when they
burn the dead, large bright fires might be seen, at which oxen were roasting.
Anise-sprinkled loaves alternated with great cheeses heavier than discuses,
crateras filled with wine, and cantharuses filled with water, together with
baskets of gold filigree-work containing flowers. Every eye was dilated with the
joy of being able at last to gorge at pleasure, and songs were beginning here
and there.

First they were served with birds and green sauce in plates of red clay
relieved by drawings in black, then with every kind of shell-fish that is
gathered on the Punic coasts, wheaten porridge, beans and barley, and snails
dressed with cumin on dishes of yellow amber.

Afterwards the tables were covered with meats, antelopes with their horns,
peacocks with their feathers, whole sheep cooked in sweet wine, haunches of
she-camels and buffaloes, hedgehogs with garum, fried grasshoppers, and
preserved dormice. Large pieces of fat floated in the midst of saffron in bowls
of Tamrapanni wood. Everything was running over with wine, truffles, and
asafoetida. Pyramids of fruit were crumbling upon honeycombs, and they had not
forgotten a few of those plump little dogs with pink silky hair and fattened on
olive lees,—a Carthaginian dish held in abhorrence among other nations. Surprise
at the novel fare excited the greed of the stomach. The Gauls with their long
hair drawn up on the crown of the head, snatched at the water-melons and lemons,
and crunched them up with the rind. The Negroes, who had never seen a lobster,
tore their faces with its red prickles. But the shaven Greeks, whiter than
marble, threw the leavings of their plates behind them, while the herdsmen from
Brutium, in their wolf-skin garments, devoured in silence with their faces in
their portions.

Night fell. The velarium, spread over the cypress avenue, was drawn back, and
torches were brought.

The apes, sacred to the moon, were terrified on the cedar tops by the
wavering lights of the petroleum as it burned in the porphyry vases. They
uttered screams which afforded mirth to the soldiers.

Oblong flames trembled in cuirasses of brass. Every kind of scintillation
flashed from the gem-incrusted dishes. The crateras with their borders of convex
mirrors multiplied and enlarged the images of things; the soldiers thronged
around, looking at their reflections with amazement, and grimacing to make
themselves laugh. They tossed the ivory stools and golden spatulas to one
another across the tables. They gulped down all the Greek wines in their
leathern bottles, the Campanian wine enclosed in amphoras, the Cantabrian wines
brought in casks, with the wines of the jujube, cinnamomum and lotus. There were
pools of these on the ground that made the foot slip. The smoke of the meats
ascended into the foliage with the vapour of the breath. Simultaneously were
heard the snapping of jaws, the noise of speech, songs, and cups, the crash of
Campanian vases shivering into a thousand pieces, or the limpid sound of a large
silver dish.

In proportion as their intoxication increased they more and more recalled the
injustice of Carthage. The Republic, in fact, exhausted by the war, had allowed
all the returning bands to accumulate in the town. Gisco, their general, had
however been prudent enough to send them back severally in order to facilitate
the liquidation of their pay, and the Council had believed that they would in
the end consent to some reduction. But at present ill-will was caused by the
inability to pay them. This debt was confused in the minds of the people with
the 3200 Euboic talents exacted by Lutatius, and equally with Rome they were
regarded as enemies to Carthage. The Mercenaries understood this, and their
indignation found vent in threats and outbreaks. At last they demanded
permission to assemble to celebrate one of their victories, and the peace party
yielded, at the same time revenging themselves on Hamilcar who had so strongly
upheld the war. It had been terminated notwithstanding all his efforts, so that,
despairing of Carthage, he had entrusted the government of the Mercenaries to
Gisco. To appoint his palace for their reception was to draw upon him something
of the hatred which was borne to them. Moreover, the expense must be excessive,
and he would incur nearly the whole.

Proud of having brought the Republic to submit, the Mercenaries thought that
they were at last about to return to their homes with the payment for their
blood in the hoods of their cloaks. But as seen through the mists of
intoxication, their fatigues seemed to them prodigious and but ill-rewarded.
They showed one another their wounds, they told of their combats, their travels
and the hunting in their native lands. They imitated the cries and the leaps of
wild beasts. Then came unclean wagers; they buried their heads in the amphoras
and drank on without interruption, like thirsty dromedaries. A Lusitanian of
gigantic stature ran over the tables, carrying a man in each hand at arm's
length, and spitting out fire through his nostrils. Some Lacedaemonians, who had
not taken off their cuirasses, were leaping with a heavy step. Some advanced
like women, making obscene gestures; others stripped naked to fight amid the
cups after the fashion of gladiators, and a company of Greeks danced around a
vase whereon nymphs were to be seen, while a Negro tapped with an ox-bone on a
brazen buckler.

Suddenly they heard a plaintive song, a song loud and soft, rising and
falling in the air like the wing-beating of a wounded bird.

It was the voice of the slaves in the ergastulum. Some soldiers rose at a
bound to release them and disappeared.

They returned, driving through the dust amid shouts, twenty men,
distinguished by their greater paleness of face. Small black felt caps of
conical shape covered their shaven heads; they all wore wooden shoes, and yet
made a noise as of old iron like driving chariots.

They reached the avenue of cypress, where they were lost among the crowd of
those questioning them. One of them remained apart, standing. Through the rents
in his tunic his shoulders could be seen striped with long scars. Drooping his
chin, he looked round him with distrust, closing his eyelids somewhat against
the dazzling light of the torches, but when he saw that none of the armed men
were unfriendly to him, a great sigh escaped from his breast; he stammered, he
sneered through the bright tears that bathed his face. At last he seized a
brimming cantharus by its rings, raised it straight up into the air with his
outstretched arms, from which his chains hung down, and then looking to heaven,
and still holding the cup he said:

"Hail first to thee, Baal-Eschmoun, the deliverer, whom the people of my
country call Aesculapius! and to you, genii of the fountains, light, and woods!
and to you, ye gods hidden beneath the mountains and in the caverns of the
earth! and to you, strong men in shining armour who have set me free!"

Then he let fall the cup and related his history. He was called Spendius. The
Carthaginians had taken him in the battle of Aeginusae, and he thanked the
Mercenaries once more in Greek, Ligurian and Punic; he kissed their hands;
finally, he congratulated them on the banquet, while expressing his surprise at
not perceiving the cups of the Sacred Legion. These cups, which bore an emerald
vine on each of their six golden faces, belonged to a corps composed exclusively
of young patricians of the tallest stature. They were a privilege, almost a
sacerdotal distinction, and accordingly nothing among the treasures of the
Republic was more coveted by the Mercenaries. They detested the Legion on this
account, and some of them had been known to risk their lives for the
inconceivable pleasure of drinking out of these cups.

Accordingly they commanded that the cups should be brought. They were in the
keeping of the Syssitia, companies of traders, who had a common table. The
slaves returned. At that hour all the members of the Syssitia were asleep.

"Let them be awakened!" responded the Mercenaries.

After a second excursion it was explained to them that the cups were shut up
in a temple.

"Let it be opened!" they replied.

And when the slaves confessed with trembling that they were in the possession
of Gisco, the general, they cried out:

"Let him bring them!"

Gisco soon appeared at the far end of the garden with an escort of the Sacred
Legion. His full, black cloak, which was fastened on his head to a golden mitre
starred with precious stones, and which hung all about him down to his horse's
hoofs, blended in the distance with the colour of the night. His white beard,
the radiancy of his head-dress, and his triple necklace of broad blue plates
beating against his breast, were alone visible.

When he entered, the soldiers greeted him with loud shouts, all crying:

"The cups! The cups!"

He began by declaring that if reference were had to their courage, they were
worthy of them.

The crowd applauded and howled with joy.

HE knew it, he who had commanded them over yonder, and had returned with the
last cohort in the last galley!

"True! True!" said they.

Nevertheless, Gisco continued, the Republic had respected their national
divisions, their customs, and their modes of worship; in Carthage they were
free! As to the cups of the Sacred Legion, they were private property. Suddenly
a Gaul, who was close to Spendius, sprang over the tables and ran straight up to
Gisco, gesticulating and threatening him with two naked swords.

Without interrupting his speech, the General struck him on the head with his
heavy ivory staff, and the Barbarian fell. The Gauls howled, and their frenzy,
which was spreading to the others, would soon have swept away the legionaries.
Gisco shrugged his shoulders as he saw them growing pale. He thought that his
courage would be useless against these exasperated brute beasts. It would be
better to revenge himself upon them by some artifice later; accordingly, he
signed to his soldiers and slowly withdrew. Then, turning in the gateway towards
the Mercenaries, he cried to them that they would repent of it.

The feast recommenced. But Gisco might return, and by surrounding the suburb,
which was beside the last ramparts, might crush them against the walls. Then
they felt themselves alone in spite of their crowd, and the great town sleeping
beneath them in the shade suddenly made them afraid, with its piles of
staircases, its lofty black houses, and its vague gods fiercer even than its
people. In the distance a few ships'-lanterns were gliding across the harbour,
and there were lights in the temple of Khamon. They thought of Hamilcar. Where
was he? Why had he forsaken them when peace was concluded? His differences with
the Council were doubtless but a pretence in order to destroy them. Their
unsatisfied hate recoiled upon him, and they cursed him, exasperating one
another with their own anger. At this juncture they collected together beneath
the plane-trees to see a slave who, with eyeballs fixed, neck contorted, and
lips covered with foam, was rolling on the ground, and beating the soil with his
limbs. Some one cried out that he was poisoned. All then believed themselves
poisoned. They fell upon the slaves, a terrible clamour was raised, and a
vertigo of destruction came like a whirlwind upon the drunken army. They struck
about them at random, they smashed, they slew; some hurled torches into the
foliage; others, leaning over the lions' balustrade, massacred the animals with
arrows; the most daring ran to the elephants, desiring to cut down their trunks
and eat ivory.

Some Balearic slingers, however, who had gone round the corner of the palace,
in order to pillage more conveniently, were checked by a lofty barrier, made of
Indian cane. They cut the lock-straps with their daggers, and then found
themselves beneath the front that faced Carthage, in another garden full of
trimmed vegetation. Lines of white flowers all following one another in regular
succession formed long parabolas like star-rockets on the azure-coloured earth.
The gloomy bushes exhaled warm and honied odours. There were trunks of trees
smeared with cinnabar, which resembled columns covered with blood. In the centre
were twelve pedestals, each supporting a great glass ball, and these hollow
globes were indistinctly filled with reddish lights, like enormous and still
palpitating eyeballs. The soldiers lighted themselves with torches as they
stumbled on the slope of the deeply laboured soil.

But they perceived a little lake divided into several basins by walls of blue
stones. So limpid was the wave that the flames of the torches quivered in it at
the very bottom, on a bed of white pebbles and golden dust. It began to bubble,
luminous spangles glided past, and great fish with gems about their mouths,
appeared near the surface.

With much laughter the soldiers slipped their fingers into the gills and
brought them to the tables. They were the fish of the Barca family, and were all
descended from those primordial lotes which had hatched the mystic egg wherein
the goddess was concealed. The idea of committing a sacrilege revived the
greediness of the Mercenaries; they speedily placed fire beneath some brazen
vases, and amused themselves by watching the beautiful fish struggling in the
boiling water.

The surge of soldiers pressed on. They were no longer afraid. They commenced
to drink again. Their ragged tunics were wet with the perfumes that flowed in
large drops from their foreheads, and resting both fists on the tables, which
seemed to them to be rocking like ships, they rolled their great drunken eyes
around to devour by sight what they could not take. Others walked amid the
dishes on the purple table covers, breaking ivory stools, and phials of Tyrian
glass to pieces with their feet. Songs mingled with the death-rattle of the
slaves expiring amid the broken cups. They demanded wine, meat, gold. They cried
out for women. They raved in a hundred languages. Some thought that they were at
the vapour baths on account of the steam which floated around them, or else,
catching sight of the foliage, imagined that they were at the chase, and rushed
upon their companions as upon wild beasts. The conflagration spread to all the
trees, one after another, and the lofty mosses of verdure, emitting long white
spirals, looked like volcanoes beginning to smoke. The clamour redoubled; the
wounded lions roared in the shade.

In an instant the highest terrace of the palace was illuminated, the central
door opened, and a woman, Hamilcar's daughter herself, clothed in black
garments, appeared on the threshold. She descended the first staircase, which
ran obliquely along the first story, then the second, and the third, and stopped
on the last terrace at the head of the galley staircase. Motionless and with
head bent, she gazed upon the soldiers.

Behind her, on each side, were two long shadows of pale men, clad in white,
red-fringed robes, which fell straight to their feet. They had no beard, no
hair, no eyebrows. In their hands, which sparkled with rings, they carried
enormous lyres, and with shrill voice they sang a hymn to the divinity of
Carthage. They were the eunuch priests of the temple of Tanith, who were often
summoned by Salammbo to her house.

At last she descended the galley staircase. The priests followed her. She
advanced into the avenue of cypress, and walked slowly through the tables of the
captains, who drew back somewhat as they watched her pass.

Her hair, which was powdered with violet sand, and combined into the form of
a tower, after the fashion of the Chanaanite maidens, added to her height.
Tresses of pearls were fastened to her temples, and fell to the corners of her
mouth, which was as rosy as a half-open pomegranate. On her breast was a
collection of luminous stones, their variegation imitating the scales of the
murena. Her arms were adorned with diamonds, and issued naked from her
sleeveless tunic, which was starred with red flowers on a perfectly black
ground. Between her ankles she wore a golden chainlet to regulate her steps, and
her large dark purple mantle, cut of an unknown material, trailed behind her,
making, as it were, at each step, a broad wave which followed her.

The priests played nearly stifled chords on their lyres from time to time,
and in the intervals of the music might be heard the tinkling of the little
golden chain, and the regular patter of her papyrus sandals.

No one as yet was acquainted with her. It was only known that she led a
retired life, engaged in pious practices. Some soldiers had seen her in the
night on the summit of her palace kneeling before the stars amid the eddyings
from kindled perfuming-pans. It was the moon that had made her so pale, and
there was something from the gods that enveloped her like a subtle vapour. Her
eyes seemed to gaze far beyond terrestrial space. She bent her head as she
walked, and in her right hand she carried a little ebony lyre.

They heard her murmur:

"Dead! All dead! No more will you come obedient to my voice as when, seated
on the edge of the lake, I used to through seeds of the watermelon into your
mouths! The mystery of Tanith ranged in the depths of your eyes that were more
limpid than the globules of rivers." And she called them by their names, which
were those of the months—"Siv! Sivan! Tammouz, Eloul, Tischri, Schebar! Ah! have
pity on me, goddess!"

The soldiers thronged about her without understanding what she said. They
wondered at her attire, but she turned a long frightened look upon them all,
then sinking her head beneath her shoulders, and waving her arms, she repeated
several times:

"What have you done? what have you done?

"Yet you had bread, and meats and oil, and all the malobathrum of the
granaries for your enjoyment! I had brought oxen from Hecatompylos; I had sent
hunters into the desert!" Her voice swelled; her cheeks purpled. She added,
"Where, pray, are you now? In a conquered town, or in the palace of a master?
And what master? Hamilcar the Suffet, my father, the servant of the Baals! It
was he who withheld from Lutatius those arms of yours, red now with the blood of
his slaves! Know you of any in your own lands more skilled in the conduct of
battles? Look! our palace steps are encumbered with our victories! Ah! desist
not! burn it! I will carry away with me the genius of my house, my black serpent
slumbering up yonder on lotus leaves! I will whistle and he will follow me, and
if I embark in a galley he will speed in the wake of my ship over the foam of
the waves."

Her delicate nostrils were quivering. She crushed her nails against the gems
on her bosom. Her eyes drooped, and she resumed:

"Ah! poor Carthage! lamentable city! No longer hast thou for thy protection
the strong men of former days who went beyond the oceans to build temples on
their shores. All the lands laboured about thee, and the sea-plains, ploughed by
thine oars, rocked with thy harvests." Then she began to sing the adventures of
Melkarth, the god of the Sidonians, and the father of her family.

She told of the ascent of the mountains of Ersiphonia, the journey to
Tartessus, and the war against Masisabal to avenge the queen of the serpents:

"He pursued the female monster, whose tail undulated over the dead leaves
like a silver brook, into the forest, and came to a plain where women with
dragon-croups were round a great fire, standing erect on the points of their
tails. The blood-coloured moon was shining within a pale circle, and their
scarlet tongues, cloven like the harpoons of fishermen, reached curling forth to
the very edge of the flame."

Then Salammbo, without pausing, related how Melkarth, after vanquishing
Masisabal, placed her severed head on the prow of his ship. "At each throb of
the waves it sank beneath the foam, but the sun embalmed it; it became harder
than gold; nevertheless the eyes ceased not to weep, and the tears fell into the
water continually."

She sang all this in an old Chanaanite idiom, which the Barbarians did not
understand. They asked one another what she could be saying to them with those
frightful gestures which accompanied her speech, and mounted round about her on
the tables, beds, and sycamore boughs, they strove with open mouths and craned
necks to grasp the vague stories hovering before their imaginations, through the
dimness of the theogonies, like phantoms wrapped in cloud.

Only the beardless priests understood Salammbo; their wrinkled hands, which
hung over the strings of their lyres, quivered, and from time to time they would
draw forth a mournful chord; for, feebler than old women, they trembled at once
with mystic emotion, and with the fear inspired by men. The Barbarians heeded
them not, but listened continually to the maiden's song.

None gazed at her like a young Numidian chief, who was placed at the
captains' tables among soldiers of his own nation. His girdle so bristled with
darts that it formed a swelling in his ample cloak, which was fastened on his
temples with a leather lace. The cloth parted asunder as it fell upon his
shoulders, and enveloped his countenance in shadow, so that only the fires of
his two fixed eyes could be seen. It was by chance that he was at the feast, his
father having domiciled him with the Barca family, according to the custom by
which kings used to send their children into the households of the great in
order to pave the way for alliances; but Narr' Havas had lodged there fox six
months without having hitherto seen Salammbo, and now, seated on his heels, with
his head brushing the handles of his javelins, he was watching her with dilated
nostrils, like a leopard crouching among the bamboos.

On the other side of the tables was a Libyan of colossal stature, and with
short black curly hair. He had retained only his military jacket, the brass
plates of which were tearing the purple of the couch. A necklace of silver moons
was tangled in his hairy breast. His face was stained with splashes of blood; he
was leaning on his left elbow with a smile on his large, open mouth.

Salammbo had abandoned the sacred rhythm. With a woman's subtlety she was
simultaneously employing all the dialects of the Barbarians in order to appease
their anger. To the Greeks she spoke Greek; then she turned to the Ligurians,
the Campanians, the Negroes, and listening to her each one found again in her
voice the sweetness of his native land. She now, carried away by the memories of
Carthage, sang of the ancient battles against Rome; they applauded. She kindled
at the gleaming of the naked swords, and cried aloud with outstretched arms. Her
lyre fell, she was silent; and, pressing both hands upon her heart, she remained
for some minutes with closed eyelids enjoying the agitation of all these men.

Matho, the Libyan, leaned over towards her. Involuntarily she approached him,
and impelled by grateful pride, poured him a long stream of wine into a golden
cup in order to conciliate the army.

"Drink!" she said.

He took the cup, and was carrying it to his lips when a Gaul, the same that
had been hurt by Gisco, struck him on the shoulder, while in a jovial manner he
gave utterance to pleasantries in his native tongue. Spendius was not far off,
and he volunteered to interpret them.

"Speak!" said Matho.

"The gods protect you; you are going to become rich. When will the nuptials
be?"

"What nuptials?"

"Yours! for with us," said the Gaul, "when a woman gives drink to a soldier,
it means that she offers him her couch."

He had not finished when Narr' Havas, with a bound, drew a javelin from his
girdle, and, leaning his right foot upon the edge of the table, hurled it
against Matho.

The javelin whistled among the cups, and piercing the Lybian's arm, pinned it
so firmly to the cloth, that the shaft quivered in the air.

Matho quickly plucked it out; but he was weaponless and naked; at last he
lifted the over-laden table with both arms, and flung it against Narr' Havas
into the very centre of the crowd that rushed between them. The soldiers and
Numidians pressed together so closely that they were unable to draw their
swords. Matho advanced dealing great blows with his head. When he raised it,
Narr' Havas had disappeared. He sought for him with his eyes. Salammbo also was
gone.

Then directing his looks to the palace he perceived the red door with the
black cross closing far above, and he darted away.

They saw him run between the prows of the galleys, and then reappear along
the three staircases until he reached the red door against which he dashed his
whole body. Panting, he leaned against the wall to keep himself from falling.

But a man had followed him, and through the darkness, for the lights of the
feast were hidden by the corner of the palace, he recognised Spendius.

"Begone!" said he.

The slave without replying began to tear his tunic with his teeth; then
kneeling beside Matho he tenderly took his arm, and felt it in the shadow to
discover the wound.

By a ray of the moon which was then gliding between the clouds, Spendius
perceived a gaping wound in the middle of the arm. He rolled the piece of stuff
about it, but the other said irritably, "Leave me! leave me!"

"Oh no!" replied the slave. "You released me from the ergastulum. I am yours!
you are my master! command me!"

Matho walked round the terrace brushing against the walls. He strained his
ears at every step, glancing down into the silent apartments through the spaces
between the gilded reeds. At last he stopped with a look of despair.

"Listen!" said the slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I
have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through the walls. Come! in
the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an
underground path leads to their tombs."

"Well! what matters it?" said Matho.

Spendius was silent.

They were on the terrace. A huge mass of shadow stretched before them,
appearing as if it contained vague accumulations, like the gigantic billows of a
black and petrified ocean.

But a luminous bar rose towards the East; far below, on the left, the canals
of Megara were beginning to stripe the verdure of the gardens with their
windings of white. The conical roofs of the heptagonal temples, the staircases,
terraces, and ramparts were being carved by degrees upon the paleness of the
dawn; and a girdle of white foam rocked around the Carthaginian peninsula, while
the emerald sea appeared as if it were curdled in the freshness of the morning.
Then as the rosy sky grew larger, the lofty houses, bending over the sloping
soil, reared and massed themselves like a herd of black goats coming down from
the mountains. The deserted streets lengthened; the palm-trees that topped the
walls here and there were motionless; the brimming cisterns seemed like silver
bucklers lost in the courts; the beacon on the promontory of Hermaeum was
beginning to grow pale. The horses of Eschmoun, on the very summit of the
Acropolis in the cypress wood, feeling that the light was coming, placed their
hoofs on the marble parapet, and neighed towards the sun.

It appeared, and Spendius raised his arms with a cry.

Everything stirred in a diffusion of red, for the god, as if he were rending
himself, now poured full-rayed upon Carthage the golden rain of his veins. The
beaks of the galleys sparkled, the roof of Khamon appeared to be all in flames,
while far within the temples, whose doors were opening, glimmerings of light
could be seen. Large chariots, arriving from the country, rolled their wheels
over the flagstones in the streets. Dromedaries, baggage-laden, came down the
ramps. Money-changers raised the pent-houses of their shops at the cross ways,
storks took to flight, white sails fluttered. In the wood of Tanith might be
heard the tabourines of the sacred courtesans, and the furnaces for baking the
clay coffins were beginning to smoke on the Mappalian point.

Spendius leaned over the terrace; his teeth chattered and he repeated:

"Ah! yes—yes—master! I understand why you scorned the pillage of the house
just now."

Matho was as if he had just been awaked by the hissing of his voice, and did
not seem to understand. Spendius resumed:

"Ah! what riches! and the men who possess them have not even the steel to
defend them!"

Then, pointing with his right arm outstretched to some of the populace who
were crawling on the sand outside the mole to look for gold dust:

"See!" he said to him, "the Republic is like these wretches: bending on the
brink of the ocean, she buries her greedy arms in every shore, and the noise of
the billows so fills her ear that she cannot hear behind her the tread of a
master's heel!"

He drew Matho to quite the other end of the terrace, and showed him the
garden, wherein the soldiers' swords, hanging on the trees, were like mirrors in
the sun.

"But here there are strong men whose hatred is roused! and nothing binds them
to Carthage, neither families, oaths nor gods!"

Matho remained leaning against the wall; Spendius came close, and continued
in a low voice:

"Do you understand me, soldier? We should walk purple-clad like satraps. We
should bathe in perfumes; and I should in turn have slaves! Are you not weary of
sleeping on hard ground, of drinking the vinegar of the camps, and of
continually hearing the trumpet? But you will rest later, will you not? When
they pull off your cuirass to cast your corpse to the vultures! or perhaps
blind, lame, and weak you will go, leaning on a stick, from door to door to tell
of your youth to pickle-sellers and little children. Remember all the injustice
of your chiefs, the campings in the snow, the marchings in the sun, the
tyrannies of discipline, and the everlasting menace of the cross! And after all
this misery they have given you a necklace of honour, as they hang a girdle of
bells round the breast of an ass to deafen it on its journey, and prevent it
from feeling fatigue. A man like you, braver than Pyrrhus! If only you had
wished it! Ah! how happy will you be in large cool halls, with the sound of
lyres, lying on flowers, with women and buffoons! Do not tell me that the
enterprise is impossible. Have not the Mercenaries already possessed Rhegium and
other fortified places in Italy? Who is to prevent you? Hamilcar is away; the
people execrate the rich; Gisco can do nothing with the cowards who surround
him. Command them! Carthage is ours; let us fall upon it!"

"No!" said Matho, "the curse of Moloch weighs upon me. I felt it in her eyes,
and just now I saw a black ram retreating in a temple." Looking around him he
added: "But where is she?"

Then Spendius understood that a great disquiet possessed him, and did not
venture to speak again.

The trees behind them were still smoking; half-burned carcases of apes
dropped from their blackened boughs from time to time into the midst of the
dishes. Drunken soldiers snored open-mouthed by the side of the corpses, and
those who were not asleep lowered their heads dazzled by the light of day. The
trampled soil was hidden beneath splashes of red. The elephants poised their
bleeding trunks between the stakes of their pens. In the open granaries might be
seen sacks of spilled wheat, below the gate was a thick line of chariots which
had been heaped up by the Barbarians, and the peacocks perched in the cedars
were spreading their tails and beginning to utter their cry.

Matho's immobility, however, astonished Spendius; he was even paler than he
had recently been, and he was following something on the horizon with fixed
eyeballs, and with both fists resting on the edge of the terrace. Spendius
crouched down, and so at last discovered at what he was gazing. In the distance
a golden speck was turning in the dust on the road to Utica; it was the nave of
a chariot drawn by two mules; a slave was running at the end of the pole, and
holding them by the bridle. Two women were seated in the chariot. The manes of
the animals were puffed between the ears after the Persian fashion, beneath a
network of blue pearls. Spendius recognised them, and restrained a cry.